Larry Brooks's Blog, page 6

Training Videos for Craft-Hungry Writers… Prices SLASHED for June

June 30, 2018

by Larry Brooks

I mean slashed… as in, demolished.

Last year I released five training videos, which I distribute through Vimeo.com.  Since I’m in the process of creating the next wave of videos, I thought I’d stir things up for these existing titles by discounting them, and in a big way.

Like, pricing them at a ridiculous comparative value – from $9.88 to $12.88 per title… or $48.88 for the whole batch (tab at upper right on the Vimeo page; otherwise, each title has its own link from that page).

Below are the five titles, which really don’t require much more in the way of a pitch. These are modules I teach at workshops, four of them running 1.5 hours, the other at 1.0 hour.

Just click over to Vimeo and they’ll walk you through the download process. These aren’t rentals, they’re downloads that you own. You can also buy the entire suite of five videos for 48.88, an even better deal.

Here are the modules (linked to the specific title buy page; again, to buy all five of the titles at once, click HERE for the main page), the running times and the discounted price:

1.
Essential Craft for Emerging Authors
1:20:41

 $12.88



2.
Ten Insidious Ways to Tank Your Novel
1:23:05

 $9.88



3.
Story Structure Demystified
1:51:47

 $12.88



4.
The Collision of Concept and Premise
1:30:45

 $12.88



5.
Tip Toppling: Shades of Gray in the Common Conventional Wisdom of Writing
1:00:26

 $9.88

The post Training Videos for Craft-Hungry Writers… Prices SLASHED for June appeared first on Storyfix.com.

47 Meters Down – a Story Deconstruction

June 13, 2018

A guest post by Jennifer Blanchard

Note: This movie is currently available on Netflix

  Spoiler Alert: The following deconstruction is going to give you a complete overview of everything that happens in this story, and break down all the structure. I recommend you read through this in its entirety and then go watch the movie for comparison.

 I don’t know about you, but I’m a total story nerd. One of my hobbies is deconstructing movies. I actually find it fun to watch a movie and break down all of the structure points, so I can get a better, more thorough understanding of the story.

I’ve been wanting to write another guest post for Larry for awhile now and so today is one of those times where my nerdy hobby comes in handy.

I chose to do a deconstruction of 47 Meters Down for two reasons: 1. The Concept is incredible and I knew it was going to be an awesome study in craft, and 2. I’m obsessed with sharks.

(Quick insert from Larry: Jennifer is obsessed with STORY, too… which is why you need to soak this up. It’s a real gift for writers wanting to cross the bridge from fiction writing principles to a real-life story-case study that relies on them.)

Concept: Being low on air and trapped in a shark cage at the bottom of the ocean.

Premise: Two sisters go shark-diving in a shark cage while on vacation in Mexico. Everything’s going great until the the rusty-old equipment fails, plummeting them 47 meters down to the bottom of the ocean. Their scuba tanks are low on air, they’re in open ocean surrounded by an unknown amount of Great White Sharks, and their only way out is up.

Main Characters:

Lisa—Protagonist (Hero)Kate—Protagonist

The Ocean—Antagonistic Force

The Sharks—Antagonist (personifying the danger and unknowns of open ocean)

Secondary Characters:

Louis and Benjamin (aka: the guys)

Captain Taylor—boat captain

Javier—Taylor’s assistant

Part One: Set Up

As the credits are rolling, we’re shown faded images of the murky ocean bottom. Immediately after we’re shown a camera angle from below (just how a shark would see things—hint, hint!), looking up from the bottom of what we think is the ocean.

On the surface of the water we see someone floating in a raft with a glass full of red liquid.

Hook: A girl swims up from below (camera angle same as what a shark would see) and tips the girl off the raft, spilling her and the red liquid into the water (which looks exactly how blood in the water would look—hint, hint!).

We meet two sisters—Lisa and Kate—who are on vacation together in Mexico. After they get out of the pool, they have dinner and cheers to this being a great trip.

Soon after we find out that Lisa had a different motivation for going on this trip than she originally let on. She actually went on the trip because her live-in boyfriend broke up with her for not being fun or adventurous enough. She thought going on the trip would be a way to prove to him that she was fun, so he’d come back to her when she got home.

This moment tells us that this is Lisa’s story. She is the main Protagonist.

Kate decides to drag Lisa out for a night of fun. They go to a club where they dance, drink and meet two guys. They all hang out on the beach for the rest of the night until the sun comes up.

The sisters then go to dinner with the guys later that night where the guys tell them about how they go shark diving every weekend. Kate is immediately down to try it, but Lisa has major reservations, especially because she doesn’t know how to scuba dive.

Kate convinces her by pulling the ex-boyfriend card and telling her that she can take pictures of the sharks and send them to her ex as a way of showing him how fun and adventurous she actually is. Lisa agrees.

But the next morning when they show up to the boat, again, Lisa has reservations. She doesn’t feel right about it, and she’s nervous about not knowing how to scuba. But when the boat Captain, Taylor, asks them if they know how to scuba she lies and says that she does.

They ride a smaller boat out to meet the larger shark diving boat that will take them out to open ocean to go in the shark cage.

Once they arrive at the diving point, Taylor and his assistant, Javier, begin to chum the water with blood and fish guts, to attract the sharks to the boat.

Soon after a huge Great White shark arrives.

The guys go first; they put on their scuba gear, get in the cage and go down into the water with their camera. While the guys are down there, the girls are preparing themselves to go next.

Again, Lisa is panicking. She doesn’t want to do it, but Kate is pushing her, hard. Eventually she caves, says she’ll do it and the girls put on their scuba gear.

The guys come back up from diving in the cage and it’s the girls turn. Taylor explains to them about the air bars on the scuba tank and tells them to let him know when it reaches 50 because he’s going to bring them back up.

Right before they get into the cage, Kate asks if she can borrow the Louis’ camera. He says yes, but if she drops it, she has to go down to the bottom to get it (some really good foreshadowing here).

They get into the cage with the camera and Taylor and Javier lower them down.

The girls are in the cage, 5 meters below the water. Lisa settles in and she’s amazed at how incredibly peaceful and beautiful it all is.

But they’re not seeing any sharks. Taylor tells them to sit tight, and the guys chum the water some more.

While they’re waiting, Kate asks Lisa to take a picture of her and when she’s handing the camera over, Lisa accidentally drops it and it falls through the cage where they can’t reach it.

As they watch the camera fall, a Great White shark comes up from the depths and eats it. Now they’re surrounded by sharks.

While the girls are watching the sharks, the cage slips and they drop down a bit. Lisa panics and asks Taylor to bring them back up. He tells them everything is OK—the wench mechanism on the cage just slipped and he’s going to bring them back up.

Not a moment later…

First Plot Point: The wench fails, releasing the cable attached to the cage, which sends the cage plummeting—fast—to the bottom of the ocean (along with the crane the wench is attached to).

There were a lot of hints leading up to this moment, but the actual plot point is when the cage falls and then hits the ocean bottom. Now we have an Antagonist—personifying an Antagonistic Force—with an opposing goal (the girls’ goal is to get out alive; the sharks want to kill them). Now we know what’s at stake.

Now we have a story.

Part Two: Reaction

The speed of the fall and the intensity of the crash knocks Lisa out cold. She’s bleeding from her nose and has water inside her mask. She almost looks peaceful.

After a minute we hear Kate calling to Lisa and we’re pulled back into the chaos of what’s happening. Kate empties the water and blood from Lisa’s mask, releasing it into the water (blood attracts sharks). Lisa realizes where she is and what’s happened and she freaks out.

Kate does her best to calm her down, because panicking will just cause them to use up more oxygen and their tanks are already low. The girls discover they can’t reach Taylor because they’re just out of range of the radio.

Kate says if she swims up, she can get in range so she can talk to Taylor and find out what to do. But the girls discover that not only did the cage fall, but the entire crane and wench mechanism did too—and it’s currently blocking the door of the shark cage from opening.

So Kate decides to try and slip through the bars of the shark cage so she can get out and open the door. Problem is, she doesn’t fit through the bars with her scuba gear on. She has to take it off, swim through the bars, and then put it back on when she’s on the other side, which makes Lisa panic even more.

It’s their only option at this point, so Kate does it. Once she’s out, she says to Lisa that before she goes up to make contact with Taylor, she’s going to move the crane from the door, so Lisa can get out, in case Kate doesn’t make it. Lisa tells her not to talk like that.

Then Kate swims over to the door of the shark cage and attempts to move the crane out of the way. It’s trapped by some rocks, which she ends up having to move first.

After much effort, she manages to move the wench off the door so they can go in and out. Then she swims up and attempts to contact Taylor.

Pinch Point 1: Kate makes contact with Taylor and he tells her to get back into the cage because it’s the only safe place from the sharks. He tells her that whatever they do, they can’t rush up to the surface or they’ll get the bends (carbon dioxide bubbles in the brain, which will kill them).

 All of this is a reminder of the Antagonist and what’s at stake for them.

Taylor also tells Kate they installed a backup wench and Javier is coming down with a new cable to attach to the cage so they can pull them up. All they have to do is wait.

So that’s what they do… they wait. They sit in the cage together and talk about their regrets and their lives. Kate apologizes for getting them into this mess.

After a little while, they hear a noise that sounds like the boat left. Lisa freaks out so Kate decides to swim up again and try to make contact. No one is there, and then out of the darkness comes a shark.

It almost gets her, but she manages to get away and back to the cage. But the shark is swimming around them and attacking the cage.

They think it’s over… then the shark retreats back into the darkness.

Lisa is losing it, she can’t handle much more, and they realize their air is running very low.

Finally, Kate spots Javier’s flashlight out in the open water. He’s down there looking for them. But for some reason he’s not moving in their direction.

They assume he must not be able to see the cage in the murky water.

Kate’s air is almost out.

Midpoint: Lisa decides to leave the cage and go find Javier.

This officially shifts the direction of the story, because now they’re not just reacting to what happened. Lisa is now deciding to be intentional about rescuing them by going to find Javier, who has the backup wench that will pull them to safety.

Part Three: Attack

Kate talks Lisa through what she needs to do while she’s out of the cage—like staying as close to the bottom as possible to avoid a shark attack from below and how to use her BCD—and she takes off to go find Javier.

Soon after Lisa takes off, Kate begins yelling that there’s a shark coming after her. Lisa swims as fast as she can into a rock-cave, just narrowly avoiding the shark. She stays for a minute, but then the shark tries to get into the cave, which drives her out of the hole.

She continues to hide behind a rock, waiting for the shark to leave. Then she continues making her way toward Javier’s flashlight.

Lisa is doing OK, she’s staying close to the bottom and there are no sharks. But then she reaches the edge of a cliff where the bottom drops down and she can’t see it from where she is. Which means she now has to swim high above the bottom, and she has no idea what’s below.

Bravely she swims on and makes it to the flashlight, but Javier isn’t with it.

Lisa picks up the flashlight and begins to swim back to Kate when suddenly she realizes she has no idea which direction she just came from. She’s totally lost in open ocean, and when she calls for Kate, she doesn’t get an answer.

Swimming in circles, Lisa decides to choose a direction to swim in and she keeps going. But she swims right into a shark and narrowly avoids becoming its meal.

As she spins around, trying to figure out which direction to swim, she bumps into Javier, who screams at her to go back to the shark cage… right before a shark gets him.

Lisa screams and continues to make her way back to where she came from. Finally, she finds the ledge where she started and she’s able to stay close to the ocean floor again.

But she still doesn’t know which direction to go in. She calls out for Kate and finally Kate can hear her again. Lisa tells her to bang a rock on the cage so she knows what direction to swim in.

Just as she begins moving toward the cage Javier’s dead body lands in front of her. She freaks out, then goes to check his air supply and he’s completely out.

She sees the backup wench hooked to Javier’s belt and she pulls it off. She also finds a spear gun, which she can use to protect her and Kate from the sharks.

Lisa finally manages to make it back to the shark cage. She hands the spear gun to Kate, and then hooks the backup wench up to the top of the shark cage. They’re almost out of there.

After she’s done, Lisa swims up to make contact with Taylor and let him know they’ve attached the backup wench. He tells her to get back in the cage immediately.

Taylor begins pulling them up and the girls are so excited to be getting out of there. But then…

Pinch Point 2: The cable attached to the backup wench breaks, sending the cage plummeting—fast—back to the bottom of the ocean, only this time, it lands on its side and traps Lisa’s leg under it.

Again, we have a reminder of the Antagonistic Force and what’s at stake.

Kate tries to lift the cage off of Lisa’s leg, but it’s stuck and she can’t move it. Lisa is stuck and Kate will be out of air in minutes. So Kate swims up to try and make contact with Taylor.

When she does, he tells her the Coast Guard is on their way and they have a specialized rescue team equipped to get them out of there safely. He also tells her that he’s sending down two more air tanks, but they have to be very careful switching to a second tank because it puts them at risk of nitrogen narcosis, which will cause them to hallucinate.

The girls wait patiently for the tanks to drop down to the ocean bottom. Once they do, Kate leaves the cage to go and get them.

When she reaches the tanks, she’s out of air and she panics as she quickly attaches the new tank to her scuba gear. Once she does, she sees that Taylor has also sent down water flares, so they can signal once the Coast Guard gets there.

Kate makes her way back to the cage with the extra tank for Lisa. As she does, Lisa screams out that there’s a shark and Kate gets down as low as can and waits.

After a little bit she decides she’s done waiting and she picks up the tank and tries to swim to the door of the cage. But a shark gets her and she drops the tank, out of reach of the cage.

Lisa is trapped under the cage and has no idea if Kate is dead or alive. But she makes a decision… she’s not going to die down here.

She tries to pull her leg out from under the cage, but it’s no use. And her air is just about out. She can see the extra air tank, it’s just outside the door of the shark cage and she can’t reach it.

Lisa looks over and sees the spear gun. She realizes she can use the spear to pull the extra tank over to her. But as she tries to reach for it, she accidentally hits the trigger and the spear shoots toward her hand, slicing it open.

Now she’s bleeding into the water and she’s got the door open on the shark cage so she can try to use the spear to pull the extra tank over to her. After a lot of pain and effort, she pulls it close enough where she can reach it.

Lisa’s tank is now out of air. She fumbles with the scuba gear, trying to reattach the new tank. She’s not moving fast enough and she’s almost out of breath.

All hope seems lost. And then…

Second Plot Point: Lisa attaches the second tank to her scuba gear and now she can breathe again.

 The All-Hope-Is-Lost moment—where you think Lisa’s a goner—is a signal that the Second Plot Point is about to happen, as this moment always happens immediately before it. And that’s how you know that, even though it was a genius idea to use the spear to get the tank, it’s not the SPP. There was still more to come.

After the SPP, no new information can come into the story. Everything that shows up must be set up, hinted at, foreshadowed or mentioned previously. And the Protagonist is now ready to step up, be the hero and defeat the Antagonist.

Part Four: Resolution

Lisa sits there for a few minutes, just breathing the oxygen in. She’s calm, peaceful.

And then she’s staring at the blood coming out of her hand from where the spear sliced it open.

As she sits there staring at it, suddenly she hears Kate. She’s alive, but she’s badly hurt, bleeding and sharks are circling her.

At first Lisa tries to get Kate to just stay calm and focus on her breathing, but Kate’s in bad shape. So Lisa decides she has to rescue her.

Lisa looks around and then realizes she can use her BCD (a piece of diving equipment with an inflatable bladder) as leverage to raise the cage up off of her leg. She places the bag under the cage and then inflates it.

As it inflates it raises the cage enough for Lisa to pull her leg out from under it (although she rips her skin as she does and now she’s bleeding from two places). Despite the pain, Lisa is now free.

She calls out for Kate and then leaves the cage to go and find her. After a minute or so she finds Kate, laying by a rock on the bottom of the ocean. She’s still alive, but just barely.

Lisa decides that they can’t wait for the Coast Guard, they have to swim up to the surface now or Kate won’t make it. So she activates one of the flares as an attempt to ward off the sharks, and they begin swimming up.

Once they get up a few meters, they’re back in range of Taylor and they let him know that they’re coming up. He tells them they have to come up slowly and do a decompression stop when they get to 20 meters.

They slowly swim up and when they get to 20 meters, they stop and he counts down the minutes until they’re able to keep moving up. As they’re waiting the flare goes out.

Kate tries to pull another one, but she drops it. Lisa grabs the final flare and ignites it just as three sharks are closing in on them. She violently flails the flare around, trying to keep the sharks back until the decompression time is done and they can make a break for the surface.

As soon as Taylor calls time, the girls take deep breaths, remove all their scuba gear and break for the surface.

At the surface, they scream for help. Taylor throws them a life preserver and they grab hold of it. They’re almost there.

And then just when they think they’re safe… they get attacked by a shark. Multiple times, and almost don’t make it out of the water.

By some miracle, Taylor and the guys manage to pull Lisa and Kate into the boat. They’re laying there, mangled and on the brink of death, and Lisa is saying over and over again, “we made it Kate, we made it.”

But then we hear Taylor’s voice. It sounds robotic.

Something isn’t right here…

Lisa looks at her hand again, the blood is still coming out of it. And suddenly we realize what’s happened… she has nitrogen narcosis and she’s hallucinating.

They’re not really on the boat.

Lisa is still trapped under the shark tank.

And Kate really is dead.

Finally Lisa snaps to, just as the Coast Guard arrives to rescue her. They slowly bring her to the surface, and she is overcome with a mix of emotions as she realizes she really is going to live, but her sister didn’t.

I loved this twist ending to this movie because you totally didn’t see it coming (I didn’t), and yet it was set up and hinted at earlier, when Taylor told Kate the reason he didn’t want to send down the second set of tanks was because it put them at risk of nitrogen narcosis. Kate’s death was also hinted at earlier, when she first got out of the shark cage and she told Lisa that before she went up to make contact with Taylor she was going to move the crane from blocking the door of the cage, just in case she didn’t make it and Lisa needed to get out.

Overall this was an amazing study in story and a lesson you can get in only 90 minutes (I admit I’ve watched this movie about 15 times now).

Have you ever seen 47 Meters Down? What did you think of the twist ending? Did you see it coming? Share in the comments.

About the Author: Jennifer Blanchard a multi-passionate author, screenwriter, blogger and coach who is on a mission to change the way writers think and challenge what they believe is possible. In early 2009, after years of struggling with her stories, she found Larry Brooks and learned about story structure, which changed everything for her. She published her debut novel, SoundCheck, in 2015. Grab her FREE Story Secrets audio series and get the inside scoop on the things Jennifer sees writers getting wrong most often in their stories, so you can get it right.

 

 

The post 47 Meters Down – a Story Deconstruction appeared first on Storyfix.com.

Story Coaching Services

May 22, 2018
by Larry Brooks
… back up and running here at Storyfix.

The notion of story coaching is paradoxical.

A confession: I’ve struggled with how to reintroduce this service to a wider market of writers. The reason for that struggle has to do with the huge variance in knowledge and experience among those who pay me to read their work.

(If you prefer to skip to the stuff about pricing and scope, scan down to the Programs and Pricing header near the end of the post. If you do that, I do encourage you to return here to immerse into the context of this proposition.)

I need to provide a service that serves all points that continuum, from the published pro to the writer who doesn’t understand the difference between a novel and a memoir, or even what a novel is at all. After doing over 500 of these projects over the past few years, I think I’ve tweaked the program to a point where it does just that.

To explain what I do and how I do it, allow me to illustrate using more familiar forms of coaching and mentoring, and drawing parallels.

By coaching, I’m not talking about a coach who holds practices every day, shows game video and sits on the bench yelling encouragement and admonishments.

I’m more like a judge on American Idol than I am a coach, in the traditional sense of the word. I observe performance, and I weigh in with feedback that is framed by the goal of making the story the best it can be, and thus, making the writer the best author they can be.

In effect, in this work I seek to “coach your story up” to a higher level of efficacy.

What I do is very much like a doctor doing an MRI on your body (your story), and then issuing a diagnosis of any issues, including therapies and fixes.

We’ll examine problems you suspect are there, assess the risks and the fixes at various levels of intervention, and we may find heretofore unknown surprises that could end up being problematic to the big picture of the story. If the client doesn’t understand the jargon or principles involved, that could a) explain why the problem exists in the first place, and b) I’ll present and clarify what it all means, both specific to the project and as a general matter of principle.

It doesn’t matter if you call the first act turn a “first plot point” or something else, or don’t call it anything at all. What matters is that it is there, that you get it right, and that you learn what just happened in the process so you can apply it going forward.

It’s not an exact science, it’s more like judging Olympic skating or diving, but in the context of a coach doing it, because a coach doesn’t judge as much as they seek to provide value leading to improvement. Even if it means sending the athlete (writer) back to spring training for some work on the fundamentals.

On the other hand… my coaching work is nothing like that of a piano teacher, for example, who takes in a new student at various levels of performance skill and coaches them up the learning curve.

Novelists require the ability to compose as well as perform. I coach at both ends of that spectrum, not by tweaking the performance as it is learned, – as a tutor might – but through assessing it on the submitted page.

I have two levels of coaching available.

There are indeed folks out there who act in that piano-teacher role, like a mentor/tutor along the writer’s path. Notice, though, that this isn’t project-specific, it is artist specific. It’s worthwhile work… but it’s not what I do.

I teach writing, and writers, through this website, and via my books and workshops.

My coaching – versus my teaching – focuses on evaluating and empowering specific projects. In doing so, I’m also coaching writers at a core level, but through the context and window of the project at hand.

The coaching of your project, either at the premise level or the manuscript level, assesses what you know and understand, but only to the extent that is demonstrated within the project you submit for analysis.

I am not a piano teacher. I am a diagnostician, and a healer for your story. If you need specific teaching, I’ll walk you through the basics, and I’ll give you one of my three writing books that is appropriate to the need.

The result of my coaching, via direct commentary to your pages and a summary Coaching Document, is a holistic take on not only your ability to craft sentences and paragraphs (your prose), but how you’ve conceived, set-up, launched, layered, complicated, nuanced, subplotted, subtexted, paced, twisted, imbued and resolved your story and your hero’s role in it, and how all that speaks to your level of understanding of the basic principles of the craft of writing fiction (novels and screenplays, as well as shorter works).

Believe it or not, the shorter/more affordable Premise Analysis actually covers much of this ground, at a fraction of the cost of a full manuscript read. That said, nothing substitutes for a full read, so if the draft is ready, this becomes a good option. Either way, the critical premise base gets a thorough vetting.

This can provide amazing value if you engage with the Premise Analysis prior to writing a draft. It can save you many months or even years, because you may not see that you are committing to an idea that is not yet a fully-vested and vetted Premise. Indeed, you may not understand the difference at this point… but I can assure you, through this program, that you will.

In other words, I’m looking for and evaluating how well you’ve entertained and connected with readers… based on the bones of a killer premise and competent prose across a well-executed dramatic arc. All of this is criteria-based… different sets of standards, benchmarks and criteria for the different elements of structure, character, theme, scenes and narrative prose (including dialogue), which provides plenty of comparative legitimacy to overlay onto your work.

Allow me to repeat: I have two levels of service, at different price points.

One analyzes your premise by breaking it down across eight variables. It also looks at the level of conceptual appeal within your premise, and how that leads to a dramatic arc launched by a critical First Plot Point moment. This embraces the entire set-up of your story, which is critical to success.

The other is a read and analysis of your entire draft/manuscript, at whatever stage you care to submit it, first or final or somewhere in between, with twelve separate categories of criteria to apply as a standard of professional expectation.

I also have an option to add manuscript pages to go along with your premise analysis. More on this in a moment.

What I don’t do… is engage with writers from a blank page perspective as a tutor or a partner (in other words, I don’t show you how to turn an idea into a fully functional story; rather, I will assess your effort at doing so, either at the premise level or the manuscript level, so we can move forward from that point). I am more diagnostician than nutritionist (that part of my work resides here on  the site, and in my writing books). I’ll toss in idea and creative alternatives if, in the analysis, one pops into my head. I don’t co-author, I don’t read each chapter as it comes out of your printer, and I don’t do lectures or discussions in a purely learning context, like a one-on-one mentor.

I offer this, in this manner, just so expectations are clear and reasonable.

All of the learnin required to get it right- what those criteria are, what they mean, how to apply them – is available here, and in my books. Of course, not everyone has digested it fully before submitting their work for coaching, so indeed some of what I provide is explanatory and educational, as required to clarify the feedback.

That’s why I offer a shorter, less expensive alternative to a full manuscript read. Because you may believe that your premise is rich and amazing, and I may tell you (and show you, using the eight criteria as a basis) that it is lacking in dramatic tension, thematic and emotional resonance, and therefore, it is more concept or idea than it is actually a premise… in which case we disagree, and you’ve gotten what you paid for: a professional diagnosis of your premise.

Too often a writer’s intention – their story idea, sometimes presented as a premise – is the problem. Too often that dooms the story from page one. Better to know that upfront, and fix it, than write an entire draft in the belief you can turn a sow’s ear into chicken salad (to mix two analogies) and then attempt to serve that bowl of chicken droppings to an agent, an editor or to your indie readers.

Too often writers don’t know what they don’t know.  Chew on that for a moment. It’s a fatal shortcoming. My job is to fill in those blanks, using your own story as the blackboard.

Programs and pricing:

The Core Premise Analysis – $195; includes:

An up-front Writer’s Guide to Premise PDF primer that defines the terms used, explains and rationalizes the questions you’ll soon confront, and generally evolves and empowers your responses to the Questionnaire you’ll use to submit your premise for analysis. It’s a Cliff’s Notes tool for this program, defining terms and laying out the criteria used to vet your answers, a 101-level guide to everything you need to know about what makes a premise work, beginning with that it is, and isn’t.
A Premise Questionnaire, which is a guided way to describe and submit your premise, along with a short synopsis of your entire story (50 words max.), broken down into elements.
You may also submit any single scene from your novel (10 pages max). This checks off the “narrative voice” box among the several other criteria for effectiveness that are required of a story that works.
You’re invited to respond, clarify and revise, based on the feedback you’ll receive, or ask questions from that context. (Further iterations, if requested, can be negotiated from there.)
You have the opportunity (optional, with additional fee) to add as many manuscript pages as you’d like me to read (beyond the scene already covered within the scope of the base program). For example, you may want a “first quartile” analysis, up through the First Plot Point – as many as 100 pages, give or take – which is a valuable window into how your story has been setup and thrust into motion. Extra pages are read at a prorated rate of $25 per 1000 words, up to 25K words (in addition to the $195 program fee).
Delivery turnaround of two weeks (unless I notify you up front of a backlog that could delay beyond that period).
“What’s next” ideas and recommendations, relative to revision, further resources and even marketing (queries, submissions, strategies, etc.).




The Full Manuscript read/review – $1950 for manuscripts of 75K to 90K words; prorated for shorter or longer manuscripts (contact me for quote, which will pro-rate the base rate). 

Includes 50 pages of line-level copy editing (to clarify any trends or issues that need addressing within the entire manuscript; this is not a copy-editing service, per se).
Feedback/commentary imparted directly onto the manuscript pages themselves (in red type).
A summary Coaching Document that includes peripheral issues such as alternative creative strategies and other relevant issues, including market- specific input. (This is a fixed-cost element of the deliverable service, and thus supports the fixed price for 75K word projects vs 90K word projects… both involve the same level of analysis and feedback.)
A reasonable back-and-forth exchange to clarify the feedback and explore your response to it.
Delivery window of six-weeks from receipt of manuscript (if I need more, based on backlog, we can discuss a reasonable timeline).
If a specific learning topic is shown to be in need of focus, I will provide you with one or more of my books (ebook version), depending on which title deals with the necessary tutoring.
You have the option of completing a Premise Questionnaire and receiving that feedback before submitting the full manuscript. This may allow you the opportunity to revise the story before submission, based on feedback received.*

To get started, or if you have questions…

… email me at storyfixer@gmail.com (Larry Brooks). Or use that address via Paypal to submit payment directly. All funds should be submitted up front. Refunds are happily provided if you request cancellation before I’ve started the read.*

Other legal stuff: provider is not guaranteeing any specific outcome directly or indirectly attributed to this process. Great novels and screenplays can go unnoticed, and bad stories get published all the time… our goal is to give your story the strongest legs possible to run a competitive race in the commercial marketplace.

 

I wish I could guarantee your complete satisfaction. Truth is, some writers opt-in to get their book affirmed. They aren’t open to criticism or being told that something is in need of further work, or they don’t agree to the specificity of that need within my feedback. That is not grounds for a refund (any more than you’d demand a refund from a doctor who has diagnosed you with something… serious). The scope of work here is me reading the book carefully, applying a set of specific criteria to multiple facets of the storytelling and reading experience within a qualitative analysis and, if possible, offer creative solutions and alternatives for the writer to consider.

 

The base fee for the Full Manuscript Analysis does not not include a second round read/analysis.Reading and analysis of a revision of a full manuscript will be treated (and billed) as a new project. It takes as long to read and evaluate a rewrite as it did the first time through.

That said, refunds, partial or full, are given happily based on a fair, win-win proposition. If I’ve finished half the read and realize that there is no need to read further, I will refund a balance that reflect not only the reading time and effort, but the value of the feedback provided, as well (based on  length of the Coaching Document).

 

The post Story Coaching Services appeared first on Storyfix.com.

Context for your Writing Apprenticeship

(I am posting this here in the main thread – it already existed as a back-end page – at the suggestion of a reader. It was offered via link in my last post, which was an important one for newer writers especially – and frustrated ones in particular – as literally a prologue to the post itself.

I know how this works, my guess is very few readers clicked through to it. Sort of like not reading the instructions in the box when you get home from Best Buy. But this has some context worth considering. You can click through to the post it preempts, or simply scroll down here, it appears right after this one.)

I have to say, I’ve been amused in the past when people have left a review of one of my writing books complaining that the whole thing could have been covered in a simple article. Writers are not immune to the wide spectrum of human behavior that embraces everyone on the scales of genius, hubris and crazy.

Okay, fine. Pretty much anything can be reduced to its core elements and logic within a limited space. Like, an article or a post. Remember when you told your kids the facts of life? Just sayin’.

It’s just that not everyone can wrap their head around complex theories and multi-element models – some of which seem to contradict that which you have been taught or have been led to believe –without some context and elaboration, even repetition through a strategic breakdown of the content. Sometimes it takes an entire wing in a bookstore to shatter the wall of resistance and the deeply rooted hold of old limiting beliefs – not to mention blind adherence to what some people say, including famous writers who want you to believe their genius is more magic than mechanics – that bind people to the truth.

So now, for cynics or those in a hurry or if you’re just plain curious, here is the principle of story structure for novelists especially, reduced to its core essences… in just under 2000 words. To be honest, I tried to cover this ground in less than 1000 words, but I couldn’t touch all the requisite bases in a way that delivered value.

This isn’t something I’ve made up – I’ve seen references to Larry Brooks’ Story Structure out there… while perhaps flattering (or not), this simply refers to what I’m doing right here, and in my books and workshops and generally on this website. Which is to offer my take on these core elements of craft, arranged as accessibly and logically as I can render it, in a field in which clarity is sometimes in short supply and peripheral opinions are thick as thieves.

And yet, there are still people that tell me they just don’t get it. Right alongside people who tell me that they reject it… it being the existence of an omnipresent story structure model that is visible within nearly every single successful novel you can find. Which is why I keep trying to clarify.

The rationale is this: if pretty much all traditionally-published novels are built around these principles, including bestsellers by authors who aren’t even sure how they got there, what are your chances in this marketplace if you try to invent a new form of storytelling all by your lonesome? That’s like trying to reinvent the hamburger, folks, or even the filet mignon… diners go to those restaurants because they know what they want, and they’ll enjoy the nuance but not a variance from the core thing itself.

Even the titles of famous writers who claim this is heresy and formula – they’re everywhere – end up applying these very same principles to their own work. It’s not exactly hypocrisy – even when it smells just like hypocrisy – it’s actually a case of vocal nay-sayers arguing about process, actually selling you their process as the superior or only option, rather than more accurately focusing on product. They don’t want to consider that their process could actually be made more efficient and effective, as opposed to just sitting down and writing whatever they feel and want to write… and gee, look how wonderfully that turned out for them? That’s what they’re selling you, and leading you down a slippery slope in doing so.

Do it just like Stephen King does it.  Or Famous Author X, who claims there are no principles involved, just his particular brand of genius. Just be sure you know and can leverage what Stephen King knows.

Not many do.

If an author infuses these principles into their stories early in the process, that simply means – it actually proves – that those principles have become second nature to them. Derrick Jeter didn’t talk much about his swing, but that doesn’t mean he advocates just standing in there and taking a hack at anything that looks close to the strikezone.

And if it took them many drafts to get there – and they always get there, if the book is out in the marketplace – then that very process of rewriting and editing was about nothing other than (besides some wordsmithing) bringing the errant early story back into closer alignment with the principles of story structure that they can’t or won’t admit to.

Story structure is like gravity. Until you honor its force and truth, nothing really works of you’re trying invent a flying machine. If all you’re doing is taking a walk, then maybe you don’t need to think too much about gravity. Just ask yourself which is a closer analogy to writing a novel: inventing a flying machine, or walking around the block.

It is so much easier to be perceived as a genius of some kind than acknowledge a principle that actually and naturally infuses your story with narrative power. Better to have people believe that all of the narrative power of your work was a product of you, not of a principle that you put into play.

I know one guy, pretty successful (in a genre-club sort of way) and out there on the periphery of the writing workshop circuit, who begins his sessions with a denial of anything that shows us what works and what doesn’t – in other words, principles, which he prematurely lumps into the dark corner of rules, which of course nobody wants to consider – in favor of… wait for it… learning “how to” like he learned it, and then doing it like he does it. Which is… what, exactly? Paying your dues like he paid his? Breaking down his own novels because, hey, this is how he does it?  When in fact, he didn’t invent that paradigm at all, he simply backed into “what works – because that is what works – after his own dance with trail and error.

He didn’t invent it. But he’s now practicing it, no matter how he finally encountered it. It doesn’t have be a religious experience after a decade or two of trial and error, applying what you’ve learned.

Because you can learn it right at square one, if you open yourself to it.

Thing is… internalizing these story structure truths become the raw grist of storytelling genius. (This is true for that guy, too, he wasn’t born with it, no matter what he tells you.) Once you begin to think this principle-driven way, to plan your stories this way, you will have stepped into a sort of genius in your own right.

Suffering is optional.

Learning this stuff can cut decades off of your learning curve.

If you’d like elaboration, just type “story structure” into the search function to the right, you’ll be shown a menu with well over 50 articles on the topic, including a couple of graphics that say it all on one page.

For now, on to the 2000 words on the subject I’ve promised you. CLICK HERE to go back to that post.

The post Context for your Writing Apprenticeship appeared first on Storyfix.com.

Story Structure Cliff Notes: The Whole Damn Structure Enchilada in Less Than 2000 Words

March 15, 2018

By Larry Brooks

(Click HERE for a Prologue to this post, if you like your setups heavy on context and real world backstory. There will be a link bringing you right back here for this 2000 word career starter.)

You’ve heard of three-act structure. With a little more resolution and specificity, that translates to a four part narrative sequence (because Act II of the three-act model actually has two parts to it).

So this “theory” isn’t new (is it truly a theory if it is nearly impossible to disprove?), but it is perhaps the most important thing you will ever learn about how to write a novel that works. Almost always, when someone comes out to reject or disprove this, it ends up being the product of some nuance of it they can’t or won’t understand.

Or, they are talking about process, not product. Which is a huge difference.

A novel is written in four narrative parts, always in the same sequence.

Each part has its own defined (meaning, we don’t get to make it up) contextual mission and purpose. Every scene that appears within any one of those four parts aligns with the contextual mission inherent to its definition.

Which is forthcoming.

All of this absolute for genre fiction, and more generally true for “literary” fiction, however you define that. Sometimes the definition of “literary” is something that takes liberties with the expected, so that accounts for something here.

Readers of commercial fiction arrive with certain expectations in place. It is why they come, why they buy or borrow the book. People don’t read classic, pure romance, for example, to come away with a broken heart. The HEA isn’t a rule, it is a core principle that is inviolate. Structure is like that, in all genres. It is how and why you deliver what the reader comes for: intrigue, drama, emotion, stimulation, frustration, fear, seduction, courage, cleverness, vicariousness, darkness and light, hope, entertainment and ultimately, resolution that makes you, the reader, glad you spent the time.

If done right, it will have four contextually-unique parts that deliver all of it, and does so in a certain order. And that becomes an astoundingly powerful tool for the writer seeking to make their story work as early in their process as possible.

A great airplane designer doesn’t forget the wings. Nor do they argue that wings aren’t always necessary. Structure is to storytelling what wings and engines are to airplanes, because they are what houses and delivers the things that readers come for, drama and emotional resonance especially.

Each part has its own contextual mission within the macro-arc of the story.

Those missions are distinct, there is very little overlap. Each leverages what has preceded it.

Each part is separated within the whole by a story milestone (a moment when the story changes), also with its own unique functional mission. These are the building blocks of your story. All your scenes appear within, or as, one of these elements… blocks of scenes that comprise each of the four parts, or the milestone scenes and sequences that separate those parts.

You could view those as four subsets of the novel.

Or even as four different stories within the macro story – four novellas, if you will – that when combined create the full narrative arc of the novel. This is what too many writers miss or try to fight off. They can’t accept that this is basically how all commercial novels are told… are written: in four parts, delivered in a certain order.

Horrors, this screams of the dreaded formula, they say.

By the way, I’ve never heard a credible novelist or writing guru/teacher say this is flat out wrong information.

They may say there is more to it, they may call it something else, but what is true for some is true for all (until you get to process, which is a different argumentative beast entirely). The people who do say this is untrue, or formulaic, or not universal in nature, are either newbies or someone confusing this discussion with process, or both.

It’s not formula, per se, which is just a word trying to explain something complex. And if it ever is, then the genre itself demands that formula; or better put, that application of the core principles (romance and detective mysteries and thrillers, for example). Rather, this is the basic nature – the physics – of modern commercial storytelling. If you doubt it, pick a novel – any novel, from your library or at your bookstore – and see for yourself. Or rent a movie, it’s true there, too. Of course, you’ll need to know what to look for, and where to look for it, and then recognize it when it appears… which it will. That ability is the true essence of someone who knows how to write a novel, versus someone that doesn’t.

The first contextual part of your story…

… is how your core dramatic thread – plot and character – is seeded, foreshadowed and setup, introducing the main players, allowing stakes to emerge, along with essential machinations to get the plot machine moving (often using foreshadowing here). It usually takes up the first 20 to 25 percent of the story. The story doesn’t fully launch in this initial section, but rather, it is set up here.

There, that was easy, right? That’s the first of the four parts. Nailed it.

Then your story changes.  It has to.

Something goes wrong. If it doesn’t, in roughly the right place (the 20th to 25th percentile mark), your story suffers from that miscalculated decision.

Which often happens if you are just writing and allow the narrative chips to fall where they may. The difference between an experienced pro and you, perhaps, is that the pro will recognize this mistake and fix it.

This narrative moment is where the sky falls.

Or when doors open. Or a threat emerges. Whatever, this shift thrusts the hero we’ve already met into the need to respond to that new situation/problem. To take action. Which could be described as embarking upon a quest, though they may not realize it yet. Often, to run for their life. Or to run into the chaos and help, or seek help.

This critical story turn is what I (and others, including Syd Field) call The First Plot Point (my friend and colleague James Scott Bells calls this the “doorway of no return,” which it is… we’re saying the exact same thing in this regard). It is what separates (transitions between) Parts 1 and 2 of your story.

That done, we’re now in Part 2.

Your hero has now noticed or engaged with something that requires a response. Because there are consequences (stakes) attached to that response (like, if they don’t succeed they will die or fail, or someone else will, or the crime will go unsolved or wrongly accused, or the love affair won’t work, and so on…), which were framed back in Part 1. The reader relates to those stakes (often a threat of some kind), they feel the emotional weight and the need to take action. And so, driven by that ability to relate to the problem – that’s what it is, your hero now has a problem that wasn’t fully there before – the reader roots for your hero within the framework of this problem.

Roots for translates to: emotional involvement. This is a critical aspect of your story’s purpose. Miss that and the story doesn’t work.

It isn’t a story until something goes wrong.

The First Plot Point, while perhaps foreshadowed earlier in Part 1, is where it goes wrong at a level that the hero cannot stay on the sidelines. Again, which is at roughly the 20th percentile mark, give or take. Everything prior to that is there to help set up this moment.

By definition then, your hero does something in response to the First Plot Point. Not always the right thing (it’s way too early to have your hero experiencing success). Here is where they get deeper into trouble, and/or the darkness that opposes them gets closer, more threatening.

A good story always has an antagonist.

Because a good story always has conflict.

Part 2, where the hero is on a new path that responds to the call to action (or cowardice, whatever it is), and it is the looming presence of a threat (stakes) – often a villain – that makes it work. Part 2 is where the dynamic between hero and villain is put more fully into play (compared to any Part 1 foreshadowing) and allowed to grow in nature and scope.

Things need to get worse, and more complicated, before you can show them getting better.

But any ultimate change of fortune for your hero must be precipitated by new information being put into the story. It may change the story, or it may explain things in a way that wasn’t obvious before. This is the midpoint moment, one of the critical story milestones, this one dividing the Part 2 hero’s response context and the Part 3 confrontation context.

The hero either leverages, or is impacted by, the new information you’ve put into play at the midpoint. It could be a betrayal, or an illusion clarified, or new forces in play, or the proximity of an otherwise incongruous opportunity or tool that might change things. The midpoint shifts the context of the story from the hero responding and running, to one of more cunning and courageous as a pretext for a more proactive attack on the problem.

Part Three is where your hero ups her/his game.

They stop running and starting acting more strategically and courageously. It may not work all that well yet, but it forces the villain to up their game as well… meaning the stakes go up, the pace accelerates and things get more dramatic than ever. Both sides collide here, and in a way that makes your reader wince or squirm or feel something that surprises them.

That doesn’t mean it ends well for the hero at this point. Threat, tension, stakes and urgency all accelerate here in Part 3. Whatever the collision is, though, it happens in a way that opens up an avenue of ultimate resolution for the hero… even though that hero, or your reader, may not see it that way quite yet.

The second plot point (at roughly the 75th percentile mark) is where your story changes again…

… with a major shift in perception and truth for all sides, including the reader’s point of view, right here at the dividing point between Part 3 and Part 4.

And quite simply – ridiculously simply, you might argue – Part 4 is where the fraught paths of hero and villain converge and ultimately collide, with a confrontation that determines the outcome of the story, and sets up the way the hero’s life is changed and is shaded going forward after that point.

Part 4 has a context of heroism, even martyrdom on the part of your hero. It doesn’t have to be fully happy, it doesn’t have to be anything, other than delivering some sort of resolution, full or partial, ironic or on-the-nose, and an emotional end-point for the reader.

There it is: four parts of the story, each with different contexts.

Part 1 sets up the story, consuming roughly 20 percent of your word count, give or take. Every scene in this part has a context of story setup.

Part 2 sends your hero into the game or storm or relationship or opportunity, with clear stakes in play, and with a threat of harm or failure looming and growing closer. Every scene in this part has a context of the hero’s response to the first plot point situation, in further context to the stakes you’ve put into motion.

Part 3 leverages new midpoint information/shifting to empower and embolden your hero, or at least puts their back against the wall in a way that calls for a higher level of response. The villain ramps up their game here, as well. The context for all scenes in this quartile/part is proactive attack on the problem the hero faces.

Part 4 puts all those pieces – of your creation, by the way, which is why you can’t really attach truisms for how your story resolves – converge (even if that’s already occurred) and collide and resolve. Your story has posed a dramatic question – will the detective catch the killer? Will love endure? Will he get away with murder? Will they survive the attack/storm/frame-up/smear/impending doom? The context of the scenes here: driving toward resolution that leverages the hero’s wits and actions.

Four contexts: setup… response… attack… resolution. Separated by three major story shifting devices: first plot point… midpoint new information… second plot point new information or nuance… leading to resolution.

If you want a deeper dive…

… there are dozens of posts on this site (there’s a Search button to the right), and there are many sites out there that explore these principles.

I have three writing books on these topics, including Story Engineering, Story Physics and Story Fix, if you want to continue the journey in a seamless manner. Also, the work of James Scott Bell (including his terrific Plot and Structure) is some of the best you can find.

Truth is, it’s all way too complicated and important to leave it at 2000 words. So I hope this has piqued your appetite for this core buffet of essential storytelling craft.

What has been your experience and journey relative to the discovery and internalization of the core principles of story structure? Are you a believer or a nay-sayer?

The post Story Structure Cliff Notes: The Whole Damn Structure Enchilada in Less Than 2000 Words appeared first on Storyfix.com.

Is Your Concept Really More Scene Than Story?

March 10, 2018

by Larry Brooks

I hear feedback that writers want to learn about the advanced nuances of storytelling. The implication being that they’ve absorbed the basics and are ready to move on.

This is hardly ever true, by the way. You can add nuance to a painting of, say, cow droppings on the side of the road… but at the end of the day it’s still a painting about crap. Understanding the criteria for a conceptually-empowered, layered story premise – the “idea” for your story, which is rarely the first one that pops into your head – is the key to everything if you’re serious about this work.

Okay, cow droppings… that’s a little harsh. But it speaks to my point: a strong premise is a different facet of craft than is strong writing. You need both. Both require nuance. But too often writers sweat the latter without having mastered the nuances of the former.

So how do we render a premise compelling? Answer: understanding the criteria for just that, and the nuances involved. This becomes a nuance in its own right – developing an idea, rather than just plopping down and starting to write about an idea – and is very much part of the advanced level of craft writers are asking for.

Too many stories fail not because they lack nuance, but because they lack core story power.  Because the core story idea – the premise – isn’t strong enough. Often, when it isn’t, it’s because it lacks a conceptual layer at its core.

Let me walk you through a couple of real-life examples.

In my workshops I sometimes ask writers to pitch their story concept. This is after a review of the definitions of concept versus premise, which is a career-enlightening nuance once you get it down. Even after hearing that, about half the group gets it wrong, pitching a premise instead of a concept, or pitching what they believe to be a concept when in fact it is… something else.

Sometimes what they pitch, with the belief that they have a concept, is nothing more than a story beat. An idea for a scene.

A single scene is never the concept of a story. Because concept is part of the entire story arc. It is what empowers a premise with compelling energy.

Here’s a nuance for you: the starting gun, the catalytic moment for a story – which usually takes place within a scene – is probably not a functional description of the story framework (i.e., the concept).

Take these pitched “concepts,” for example:

A woman loses her mother’s ashes on the way to her funeral.
An unconscious alien is discovered on the bridge of a starship.
Someone wakes up in a tub of ice with a recently stitched incision in their abdomen.
A body falls out of a window onto the hood of a waiting taxi.

Again, none of these are actually concepts… in the nuanced sense that writers need to understand their concept as a framework for their story.

All of these are scenes. Moments. Story beats. Game starters and game changers, perhaps, but not the big picture of the story landscape.

When the writer begins a draft with one of these, they may experience their first blocked moment of panic right after penning the scene that exhausts the idea itself.

If you saw the recent (and terrific) film Ladybird, you’ll remember the opening scene, where the mother and daughter are in a car arguing, talking over each other until the daughter, in her frustration, opens the door while the car is still moving and ejects herself onto the side of the road.

Knowing the larger tapestry of that story, you’ll recognize that a pitch that sounds like this – “A girl argues with her mother and bails from a moving car, injuring herself” – isn’t the concept of Ladybird, but rather, a scene that launches the narrative.

Ask yourself these four things:

Can you pitch your story concept without borrowing from the premise itself?


How compelling is that concept, even before you add character and plot?


Is your concept a framework for the story, or more accurately described as scene within it?


If it is just a scene, can you elevate your story’s concept toward a pitch that more compellingly and accurately frames the premise itself?

Concept isn’t required for a story to work. Stories that lack a conceptual essence are all over the place… especially in unpublished and self-published work.

But if you want to break into the business, make a splash, get published and find a readership, it’ll require more than your writing voice to get there. You don’t need an idea for a story, you need a story idea that is packed with compelling power at the pitch level. Something that, when someone hears it, they are already in. You need a story that resonates and compels through intrigue, emotional resonance and vicariousness… at the story landscape level, not just via the writing itself.

Concept is your ticket to making that happen. So stick with it. Soon it will become part of your process, which is the most empowered nuance of all.

The post Is Your Concept Really More Scene Than Story? appeared first on Storyfix.com.

The Story I Know By Heart

February 18, 2018

A guest post by regular contributor Stephanie Raffelock

A few years back I attended a writer’s workshop in Portland. One afternoon, a panel of authors sat on the stage and talked about process. I don’t recall who was on the panel, and it’s too bad because I heard something that day that continues to serve my writing.  An author was talking about his work and he said this: “I never write a word of prose until I can tell the entire story from beginning to end without hesitation.”

The Magic Synopsis

Shortly after that workshop, I went to Larry Brooks for some help writing a synopsis of my novel. Like many of my early experiences with Larry, there was a lot of red ink involved. I wound up with a good synopsis and I wound up with a good agent, but the process was a real wake-up call for me, because I realized that I didn’t know my stories as well as I needed to.

How Well Do You Really Know Your Story?

Those back-to-back experiences taught me this: the better you know your story, the deeper you are able to sink into your plot. Under the plot rumbles the meaning of the story, stitched together by theme and the psychological transformation that is taking place in your characters lives. The paradox is this: solid plot and character development leads you to the nuances and the complexities of your story, while at the same time can inform you to how to tell your tale in less than a minute.

How Story Gets to Your Heart

The books and stories that I knew and loved as a child all had one thing in common: I knew the story by heart. It’s such a sweet and meaningful phrase, to know something so well that it’s embedded not just in your head, but in your heart. That’s the place where all the feeling tone and meaning of story is born. But, a writer cannot access that heart-filled story place unless they first know the plot.

Story Engineering

I keep reading Larry’s books they keep teaching me the best way to do prep. I’ve taken a lot of crap about the amount of prep work that I do for my novels. Other writers have told me that I’m using the wrong side of my brain, or that I risk making it all formula, “formula” of course, being a pejorative. To know my story by heart, it first has to be engineered. You can’t put up drywall until you have a frame and trying to do so, or think that you can do so as you move along is a recipe for disaster–well, either that or rambling narrative.

Early Morning Dreams

Early this morning, somewhere between sleep and waking, I started telling myself the story that I’m writing. I got excited and it led me to the kitchen for my daily dose of caffeine. I got this. I know this story by heart.  And as a result, I look forward to getting down on the page. I tell myself the story almost every morning.

The Bottom Line

A story is about a protagonist that wants something; the antagonist that stands in their way; and the journey that ensues as a result. That’s the basic. That’s where you start. I wish I could remember that author’s name from the writing workshop. I’ve held fast to his words for a number of years: tell the story to yourself beginning to end without hesitation before you put a single word on the page. You won’t be able to do that unless you first sketch out a plot that is so vivid with events and their tensions that it seeps into your pores and breathes into your lungs.

Dear Larry Brooks

Thanks for being a good teacher. Thanks for helping me with that first synopsis. Thanks for taking the mystery out of doing what I love and giving me the pushes I’ve needed to continue on this life-long endeavor of writing the stories that I know by heart.

Here’s to red ink and old friends.

And the Final Question

How much are you willing to invest to know your story by heart? Can you say what your novel is about a minute or less?

The post The Story I Know By Heart appeared first on Storyfix.com.

Three Things You Have In Common With All Writers

February 6, 2018

by Art Holcomb

I’ve seen several thousand students in my career and, from that vantage point, trends and patterns appear.

One of those trends details things that all developing writers get wrong in the beginning of their careers.

So, today, I want to tell you three truths that you need to face about your own writing, your own personal expectations about yourself and the places where you can go astray.

TRUTH #1 –You often invest in the wrong project.

You all know the feeling – at the beginning of our writing career, we tend to stumble across an idea for story that ignites our imagination.  We are sure this notion would make a great play, movie or novel and we eagerly start to work.

And the deeper we go into the project, the naturally more committed we become.

And once we start seeing characters develop and we have a plot pathway for the story, you couldn’t stop us or dissuade us for love or money.

But here’s the deal – Excitement over a notion doesn’t necessarily tell you whether it could actually make a great book or screenplay.  And even more likely – in spite of your excitement – there’s probably not enough of an interesting idea there to even make a good short story.

Actually, the mere fact that you ARE so excited about the idea can really blind you to any inherent flaws and weaknesses.  Frankly, it is this very moment when you are in the most danger as a storyteller.

Remember: The best writing in the world cannot make a great story out of a weak idea, and the fact that you are in love with an idea – that it fascinates and captivates you and that you are filled with inspiration and energy – is absolutely no real indication that it will make a great story.’’

So – what do you really need to look for when considering a story concept?

First, and most obviously, the idea must be story-capable: That means that all the necessary parts must be there to make a great story.

They are:

A compelling HERO,

A palpable and worthy OBSTACLE

A valuable GOAL with life-or death (physically, spiritually or emotionally) STAKES, and

A THEME that can connect and resonate with an audience.

Second, the concept must be something you know enough about to write competently. Military stories, for example – even well-written one, can become a joke in the eyes of the savvy and informed reader if you know actually little to nothing about military lore, procedures, traditions, etc. Unless you read a GREAT DEAL in the genre you want to write in, you may not be familiar with the forms and conventions of that genre to do it justice

And third, a great story must be built – not intuited or channeled. Great stories (and why aspire to write anything else?) are layered and complex things, even the short ones. Working professional writers, from Stephen King on down, do not dream up great stories off the top of their head, regardless of what their reputations say.  The “scripting” process – the time spend actually writing the drafts – is but a small portion of the entire process, which must include time dedicated to “story dreaming,” research, consideration and contemplation.

You only have so much writing time in your life and only so much talent. You need to choose your ideas wisely.

TRUTH #2 – You are afraid of self-knowledge.

Your career is capped – and, by that, I mean completely and totally limited by – your knowledge of the complexity and complications of human nature.

And the only human you will ever have any chance of understanding is YOURSELF. You must use that self-knowledge to inform, motivate and humanize your characters in order to give your readers what they absolutely crave – an emotional experience. If you are not someone who’s comfortable with or willing to delve deep into their own life and emotional history for those tools for your stories, you will absolutely fail to write a great story.

One of the secrets to writing something commercial liable is to write something HONEST.

Professional writers – in my experience – do not approach their own writing by asking, “Is this original and groundbreaking? Will it earn me the respect I deserve?”

Instead, s/he should be looking at it from the inside-out and ask, “Does this story move me emotionally? Is it authentic and specifically drawn from who I am? And will this interesting to others?”

TRUTH #3 – You are impatient.

We, of course, believe that everything we write should be published.  The mere fact that we’ve completed the monumental task of actually completing our first draft  subconsciously means that we’re ready to get an agent and get this thing into print.

It doesn’t work this way.

It has never worked this way.

And the fact that new writers believe this is not their fault.  It’s part of the myth of writing – that it is a communication and not a craft (but that’s a valuable topic for another post).

All successful writers are, actually, really very much like professional athletes

We must MASTER the fundamentals – vast portions of what I write are based entirely on the fundamental of good writing.  Larry and I have brought you books and seminars and posts filled with this information but, if you do not truly embrace it, nothing great can happen.

We must practice and train.  I write practice pieces every day – prose and scripts that WILL NEVER be seen by anyone else, as I practice these fundamentals and learn my crafts.  I accepted the fact early on that I might never see my first piece, or even my fifth in print on the screen – but I did know that I would eventual sell if I became good enough. That’s why I practice writing every day – even after 40 years at the craft.

We must be coached. I sought out writers and teachers I believed could teach me something I didn’t know –  and then I practiced it  – under their guidance – until I became good enough to submit.

No one makes it there on their own.  We all stand on the shoulders of those that came before us.  We seek out the best advice possible – and that, in part, is which you’re here on this site today.

So – what do we do?

FIRST, GET SERIOUS. You must say to yourself that this is who I am.  This is what I want to dedicate my life to accomplishing. Because the frank truth is that a great many of you want to be a published writer, but you do not want it badly enough to do whatever it takes.

SECOND, GET THE INFORMATION AND MENTORING YOU NEED. The Second Pillar says that all writers need to have a constant mentoring presence in their life. That means someone who is helping to guide you through the process one-on-one.  This can be through Larry’s books or great video series or through my seminars and writing – or through either of us in person –  but it can also be through any writer or teacher that you can make a connection with.  Look for someone who has done what you want to do, someone with a track record.

THIRD, REALIZE THAT THIS ISN’T GOING TO BE EASY. Nothing important ever is.  If you enjoy the process of writing, if the prose comes easily to you, then there is a very good chance that you’re not working anywhere near hard enough to create the success you desire.

But if you are serious and yearn for that success, you can achieve it. You have found here a community of people with the same dreams and desire – and when you’re ready to move up to the next level of commitment and craft, we’re here for you.

Everyone was a beginning, aspiring writer once.  The difference is – will you remain there?

Until next time, keep writing!

Art

 

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Pillar 3: The Short Feedback Loop

January 25, 2018

By Art Holcomb

Many of you have heard about the scene I caused at a Starbucks some time ago when I confronted about a dozen writers, working away on their screenplays and novels at the coffee house.

In short, I was very interested in hearing the premises of their stories, but I completely lost it when they told me that, on average, they were on the 11th or 12th draft and had been working of their stories for more than three years.

What I didn’t go into – because of space and time – was that many of these people had never shown their work to anyone in all that time. 

Never submitted.

Never been to a critique group.

Never, in fact, saw the need to show their work to anyone else – that was, until they could be sure that it was PERFECT.

I think, upon reflection, that this was the only real reason I lost in all over these writers.

The idea that they had spent the past couple of years so lost in their own thoughts, never considering for even a moment whether their work had a chance of entertaining or even interesting an audience, made me realize that these writers – no matter how hard they worked or how long that wrote – were ever going to find any real success.

The Pillars of Writing – the topic of the past couple of posts I’ve done here – is predicated on the thought that you – at some point – are interested in becoming a professional writer and regularly connecting with a paying audience  That you’re writing stories, movies and novels with an eye toward finding people willing to actually pay you for your work.

Successful storytellers do not function in a vacuum. 

We live for that moment that we can enthrall an audience, when our words and images can so captivate another person that they are transported and transformed by the experience. Writing is ultimately, after all, a communication between two people – one giver and one receiver – and if your story is only interesting to you, part of a world only of your own imagination, then there really is little reason to put it down on paper in the first place.

For the rest of us who seek out a paying and appreciative audience, the short feedback loop is the Mother’s Milk.

We know that we need to make sure that we’re making that connection, that the tales and stories that we weave can be imagined and seen in the mind of a reader.  Nothing makes me happier than watching someone listening to my words in a play or film or watching with delight as they approach a great part of a short story I’ve written and I can see the reaction on their face.  It tells me that I have what it takes to affect another human being with the power of my imagination…

… and the feeling is indescribable.

So it’s clear that we all need regular feedback. But what does that really mean?

Well . . .

The Feedback must be TIMELY.  Waiting until the novel is finished to make sure you’re on the right track means that this information comes much too late.  I personally need to know if my story is working at several points during the process:

At the PREMISE STAGE: When I can go to someone I trust and say,  “Let me tell you a story,”  and then ask at the end, “Did you find this interesting and compelling?” and, “Would you like to hear more?”

At the ROUGH DRAFT STAGE: When I have put the story down on paper and taking my first shot at structuring it in such a way that makes it relatable and interesting to a reader.

At the FINAL DRAFT STAGE: When I am ready to submit and I need to know that it is ready for the outside world to finally see it.

The Feedback must be HONEST:  Flattery is more destructive to the creative process than feedback could ever be.  And it is a mistake to ask just anyone for feedback because sometimes their comments have nothing to do with the quality of your work.  I, for example, do not show my work to family members or non-writing friends, simply because they have to maintain a relationship with me.  My wife, children, and relatives might do anything to avoid hurting my feelings and so they might tell me that my work is good when it isn’t.  That is just destructive to my cause and can set my efforts back severely.

The Feedback must be ACCEPTED. Feedback is only useful if you are ready to hear it. Taking notes into consideration and having your work professionally criticized is a natural and necessary part of the professional’s writing process.  Yet so many writers I come across are terrified of the prospect of honesty about their work.  I wish there was a better way of stating this but – if you cannot accept an honest critique about your writing, if you would be destroyed by a negative criticism about your work – you cannot  and WILL NOT ever succeed as a writer.  Best to know this now.

So, what should you do?

CREATE YOUR OWN GROUP OF FIRST READERS: People that you can count on to give you the feedback you need. This can be the most valuable weapon in a writer’s arsenal. And this may take a while to achieve – you may have to go through a number of candidates before you find some people that you can rely upon. Do not be discouraged – and always treat these people as the assets that they are.

GET USED TO CRITIQUE: Steel yourself against taking these comments personally.  Understand the difference between criticism of the WRITING and criticism of the WRITER.  Seek out comments about your work at critical stages in the development of your story.

LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A GOOD NOTE AND A POOR ONE: Not all comments mean something. You have to learn the vital skill of deciding whether a note demands a change in the story. This really comes from experience, so be patient and listen critically to what’s being said. It’s not a matter of whether you AGREE with the note – it whether a change based on that note will make the story better FOR THE READER.

CONSIDER GETTING A PROFESSIONAL’S OPINION: The best notes comes from experienced writers and readers and they are very often well worth the money.  Seek out experienced writers in for your form and learn from their comments. It can make all the difference in the world.

NEXT TIME: We’ll discuss the fourth Pillar of Writing – the need for accountability.

Until then – just keep writing.

*****

SPECIAL OFFER FOR STORYFIX READER:  You can get a FREE copy of my instructional eBook, THE ART OF PREPARATION by sending an email to me at – aholcomb07@gmail.com – and telling me the one topic you would most like me to cover in an upcoming StoryFix post.

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Write Everything

January 11, 2018

A guest post by Stephanie Raffelock

For the past few years, I’ve been a committed student of story. Larry Brooks remains my great inspiration to learn the craft. He told me that I would probably have to write 4 or 5 novels to really integrate story structure.

In spectacular rookie fashion, I thought– nah not me. I won’t have to write that much for my talents to be discovered. And as if he were reading my mind he added, “talent is just the admission ticket.”

As beginning novelists, the hard truth that we don’t want to hear is: learning to write in a multi-dimensional, heavily nuanced art form like the novel is going to take a lot of practice.  And I’ve discovered that writing things other than novels can serve that practice.

Writing Every Day:  It’s exhausting to constantly work on a big manuscript. If you hang in there, you’ll learn that you can’t wait for the muse to show up, and a lot of days it’s just damn hard work and determination that gets you through the next scene. I’m a proponent of writing every single day, because practice is how you get better.

Creating In-between Days:  Every 10 days I send off pages to my coach/mentor and then I have about three or four days where I don’t touch my big work-in-progress while I’m waiting for notes. On those days, I do a different kind of writing. I’m lucky to have a couple of blogs that publish my posts on a regular basis. I also write bi-monthly for a local newspaper.

What Blogs and Newspapers Can Do For A Writer:  If you only have 600-650 words per article, you get word-efficient, quickly.  Unless your curly prose turns into essential prose, you’ll never make your deadline.  The process of writing for blogs and the newspaper is an immediate one. And the gift of that immediacy is focus. I don’t have the luxury of thinking about whether or not I have something to say, or if my work is good enough, or any of the other sucky things writers tell themselves.

Diversity: One of my favorite writers, the late Norah Ephron, wrote magazine essays, newspaper articles, screenplays and novels. Her stories were complete, her prose crisp and clean, and I’m convinced that part of what made her so good was that she wrote everything.

Fresh Ideas:  The thing I love the most about writing for the newspaper, is that all of the articles are assigned. And thus far, none of the topics are things that I would have thought to write about on my own: burlesque, kayaking from Oregon to Alaska, an interview with a comic strip artist.  There’s a story idea in each one of those things. I was hooked when the burlesque dancer I interviewed told me that she’d been adopted by a group of drag queens who taught her the business. I’m never going to run out of ideas if I keep doing this gig.

The quest to write novels, really good stories, is a journey of love that fuels purpose in my life. And writing essays, posts and articles often reveals a voice or a conviction that can inspire the larger project.  Too, I have to admit, I like seeing my work published on sites other than my own, and the Tuesdays that the newspaper comes out, are always kind of a thrill.

I want to write everything.

One day I’ll investigate screenplays and comic books (one of many reasons to be thankful Art Holcomb is here with us on this site), just as a means of rounding out what I consider to be my writing education.

What about you?  Do you work in forms other than the novel? Does that help or hinder your larger works? I hope you’ll share your thoughts with me in the comments section.

Stephanie Raffelock is a frequent and valued contributor to the conversation here on Storyfix. She is an aspiring novelist who writes about the transformational forces of life. She served an internship at The Boulder Daily Camera, and has been published in The Aspen Times and Quilter’s Magazine. She is a regular contributor on SixtyandMe.com as well as a contributing writer for The Rogue Valley Messenger.  Stephanie is the Youth Programming Director for Oregon’s Willamette Writers, and maintains a board position with Southern Oregon University’s Hannon Library. You can reach out to her at stephanieraffelock.com and @Sraffelock.

*****

 

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